The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,173

cold she’d become over the day; she realized she hadn’t been able to feel her toes until now.

“Are you warm?” Altan asked.

She nodded quickly. “Thanks.”

He watched her in silence for a moment. She felt the heat of his gaze on her, and tried not to flush. She was not used to receiving Altan’s full attention; he had been distracted with Chaghan ever since Khurdalain, ever since their falling-out. But things were reversed now. Chaghan had abandoned Altan, and Rin stood by his side. She felt a thrill of vindictive joy when she considered this. Suddenly guilty, she tried to quash it down.

“You’ve been to the mountain before?”

“Only once,” Altan said. “A year ago. I helped Tyr bring Feylen in.”

“Feylen’s the one who went crazy?”

“They all go crazy, in the end,” he said. “The Cike die in battle, or they get immured. Most commanders assume their title when they’ve disposed of their old master. If Tyr hadn’t died, I probably would have locked him in myself. It’s always a pain when it happens.”

“Why aren’t they just killed?” she asked.

“You can’t kill a shaman who’s been fully possessed,” said Altan. “When that happens, the shaman isn’t human anymore. They’re not mortal. They’re vessels of the divine. You can behead them, stab them, hang them, but the body will keep moving. You dismember the body, and still the pieces will skitter to rejoin the others. The best you can do is bind them, incapacitate them, and overpower them until you get them into the mountain.”

Rin imagined herself bound and blindfolded, dragged involuntarily along this same mountain path into an eternal stone prison. She shuddered. She could understand this sort of cruelty from the Federation, but from her own commander?

“And you’re all right with that?”

“Of course I’m not all right with that,” he snapped. “But it’s the job. It’s my job. I’m supposed to bring the Cike to the mountain when they’ve become unfit to serve. The Cike controls itself. The Cike is the Empire’s way of eliminating the threat of rogue shamans.”

Altan twisted his fingers together. “Every Cike commander is charged with two things: to obey the will of the Empress, and to cull the force when it’s time. Jun was right. There’s no place for the Cike in modern warfare. We’re too small. We can’t achieve anything a well-trained Militia force couldn’t. Fire powder, cannons, and steel—these things win wars, not a handful of shamans. The only unique role of the Cike is to do what no other military force can do. We can subdue ourselves, which is the only reason why we’re allowed to exist.”

Rin thought of Suni—poor, gentle, and horrifically strong Suni, who was so clearly unstable. How long before he would meet the same fate that had befallen Feylen? When would Suni’s madness outweigh his usefulness to the Empire?

“But I won’t be like the commanders of before,” Altan said. His fingers clenched to form fists. “I won’t turn from my people because they’ve drawn more power than they should have. How is that fair? Suni and Baji were sent to the Baghra desert because Jiang got scared of them. That’s what he does—erases his mistakes, runs from them. But Tyr trained them instead, gave them back a shred of rationality. So there must be a way of taming the gods. The Feylen that I knew would not kill his own people. There must be a way to bring him back from madness. There has to be.”

He spoke with such conviction. He looked so sure, so absolutely sure that he could control this sleeping army the same way he had calmed Suni in that mess hall, had brought him back to the world of mortals with nothing more than whispers and words.

She forced herself to believe him, because the alternative was too terrible to comprehend.

They reached the Chuluu Korikh on the afternoon of the second day, hours earlier than they had planned. Altan was pleased at this; he was pleased at everything today, forging ahead with an ecstatic, giddy energy. He acted as if he had waited years for this day. For all Rin knew, he had.

When the terrain became too treacherous to keep riding, they dismounted and let the animal go. The gelding strode away with a grievous air to find somewhere to die.

They hiked for the better part of the afternoon. The ice and snow thickened the higher up they climbed. Rin was reminded of the treacherously icy stairs at Sinegard, how one misstep could mean a shattered